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The death warrant of the navy of France was signed and sealed by the fight of Trafalgar. In the heat of the action, a ball, fired from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable, struck Admiral Nelson on the left shoulder, when he instantly fell. "They have done for me, at last, Hardy," said he, to his captain.
Mick and I scrambled up, almost out of breath, into the mizzen-top; which we hardly reached before we heard the commodore give the next order necessary to enable us to take in the reef "Weather tops'l braces, round in! Lower the tops'ls!" Next followed our own especial order "Trice up and lay out!"
Hold on, then, those other boats!" Meanwhile several seamen were shouting as they strained at the braces. "Cut! cut all! Lower away! lower away!" impatiently cried the sailors, who already had leaped into the boats. "Heave the ship to, and hold fast every thing," cried the captain, apparently just springing to the deck. "One boat's enough. Steward; show a light there from the mizzen-top.
Suddenly, glancing up at the dim cloud of sails above, I saw that we were aback and making sternway. We might have tossed a biscuit aboard the big Serapis as she glided ahead of us. The broadsides thundered, and great ragged scantlings brake from our bulwarks and flew as high as the mizzen-top; and the shrieks and groans redoubled.
Ay, ay, my lads, let us hate the one and cleave to the other." A day or two after the publication of Lemsford's "Songs of the Sirens," a sad accident befell a mess-mate of mine, one of the captains of the mizzen-top. He was a fine little Scot, who, from the premature loss of the hair on the top of his head, always went by the name of Baldy.
Cannoning against the rigging on the port side, he was caught up in the belly of the mizzen-top sail, which slightly stopped the impetus of his descent, but, the concussion broke his spine, and when I, pale, trembling, and almost as lifeless as he, coming down from aloft, I hardly know how, reached his side, the doctor, who was bending over him and applying stimulants, said he had only a few moments longer to live.
I was in the mizzen-top, and as I possessed a spy-glass, I could see clearly all that occurred. The water on which she floated was nearly smooth, though covered with foam, caused by the masses of ice as they approached each other. I looked; she had but a few fathoms of water on either side of her. As yet she floated unharmed.
"The Redoubtable flew no colours, so we couldn't tell when she struck, and twice the Admiral, wishing to spare life, gave orders to cease firing, thinking she had given in. But she had not done so, and soon after a ball from her mizzen-top struck Nelson on the left shoulder, and he fell. They took him below at once.
Thus, getting under weigh, or going into harbour, or at divisions and quarters, all hands are at their proper posts at the same time. Each top has its proper crew, who are known as fore-top men, main-top men, and mizzen-top men, whose duty is to tend the sails above them.
Bill was very quick in learning, and so, before they got half way across the Atlantic, he knew how to put the ship about almost as well as any body on board. He soon, indeed, caught Tommy Rebow up, and as they were both well-grown lads, they were placed in the mizzen-top. Both of them soon learned to lay out on the yards, and to reef and furl the mizzen-topsail as well as anybody.
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